"Where's the stuff?" Yunmo shook his hand holding the cigarette and raised his eyelids to look at Zhang Cheng.

"Assembling and commissioning." looked at Lieutenant General Yunmo who raised his eyebrows. Zhang Cheng smiled and waved his hand: "Where are the submarines of the Navy?" You're not going to go to the British for experiments on submarines, are you? By the time you drive the submarine over, I'll have already debugged things on my side. ”

Lieutenant General Yunmo frowned, staring at the cigarette in his hand slightly, not knowing what he was thinking.

After a while, Vice Admiral Yunmo casually snuffed out the cigarette butt and looked at Zhang Cheng with a serious expression, "I will send a telegram to the Navy Headquarters to adjust the secrecy level of you and your arms company to the first grade." Not just depth charges and sonar, but all your new technology in the future must be kept strictly secret. ”

"Well, no problem." Zhang Cheng naturally knew what Lieutenant General Yunmo meant, and nodded in response.

After saying this, Lieutenant General Yunmo seemed to breathe a long sigh of relief, and leaned back into the soft sofa. Squinting his eyes, he chuckled and said, "Originally, I was reluctant to come here to be the commander of the British fleet. It's hot in this position. However, the military order was difficult to disobey, so I had to pack my luggage and come over. ”

Speaking of this, Lieutenant General Yunmo raised his hand and nodded at Zhang Cheng, and a look of appreciation flashed in his eyes, "Fortunately, you gave me a surprise." The thing that caused the entire navy a headache to death was solved by you so easily. I'm a recommender who can be regarded as a stain of your light. ”

"Tell the truth." Zhang Cheng narrowed his eyes and said in a low voice, "This kind of passive defense is not easy to do. ”

"I know that." Vice Admiral Yunmo spread his hands helplessly, "But now the navy is indeed very worried about the threat of submarines. After all, the more than 10,000-ton Yancheng was killed by a submarine, which shocked those stubborn old guys. They were afraid that the bigger battleships would also be taken out, so they were very concerned about it. ”

"Don't you have a submarine?" Zhang Cheng looked at Vice Admiral Yunmo suspiciously, "The Navy should also have its own submarine, right?" You don't know how powerful the things in your hands are? Didn't the submarine take part in the exercises? ”

"Alas~~~," Lieutenant General Yunmo sighed, "It is true that there is a group of young officers who have written many reports. But the submarines are sentinels during each exercise, and they are only used for reconnaissance, transportation and communication relays. ”

"It can't be such an old plot, right?" Zhang Cheng looked at Lieutenant General Yunmo in a daze, with a look of disbelief.

"That's it." Vice Admiral Yunmo raised his hand helplessly and rubbed his forehead, "You also know how many years the navy has not fought a big war." Now in power are a group of antiques that are dozens of years old. The older a person is, the more conservative they are. In the eyes of this group of old guys, there are only giant ships and cannons, desperately competing with the army for military expenses, and building battleships no matter what. Battleships are getting bigger, and the caliber of the main guns is getting bigger. However, they do not see the tremendous changes brought about by the rapid development of science and technology to the military! These old diehards! ”

Zhang Cheng raised his eyelids and looked at Lieutenant General Yunmo with a strange expression, pursed the corners of his mouth and did not speak.

"Stinky boy!" Lieutenant General Yunmo was slightly stunned, and then understood. Some of them raised their hands and pointed at Zhang Cheng with tears and laughter, "I'm a young Zhuang faction, a young Zhuang faction!" ”

"Huh." Zhang Cheng was just joking. After laughing, he thought about it and looked at Vice Admiral Yunmo, "In fact, with the current submarine technology, it is difficult to pose a huge threat to a warship that has been prepared. As long as it is equipped with advanced detection equipment and depth charges. It was essentially nothing more than an assassin's submarine, and it didn't play much role in front of a regular warship. They are not really the forces that can determine naval battles. The future of the Navy is in the sky. ”

After a pause, a trace of entanglement flashed in Zhang Cheng's eyes, and he sighed lightly, took out a document from the briefcase he was carrying, and handed it to Lieutenant General Yunmo with a curious face: "Actually, the biggest deterrent of submarines is that they can cut off cargo routes!" ”

Vice Admiral Yunmo's hand paused slightly, and he had already seen the bold characters on the cover of the thick stack of documents handed over by Zhang Cheng, 'On the tactics of submarine wolf packs'

Warm afternoon sunlight shines through the bright and clean portholes in this luxurious meeting room, and the soft light illuminates the room.

Outside the porthole, the waves were churning and the clouds were rolling. Riding on such a huge warship on the sea route is almost impossible to feel the trembling sensation of the waves.

Despite the cold sea in early spring, the temperature and light in this room are noticeably suitable.

In the quiet conference room, there was only the 'rustle' sound of Lieutenant General Yunmo flipping through the materials at the moment. And Zhang Cheng on the sofa opposite was already dozing off with his chin propped up. These days, he has to stay up late almost every night to copy materials and draw drawings. In this era when there are no printers, this is definitely an extremely exhausting job.

"Huh~~~" I don't know how long it took, Lieutenant General Yunmo breathed a sigh of relief and put away the documents in his hand with a serious expression. looked at Zhang Cheng: "This thing is definitely not allowed to be spread outside." ”

Lieutenant General Yunmo saw very clearly that once this tactic was used on a large scale. The Ming Empire, which has the world's largest shipping capacity, will fall into ruin. In the vast ocean, a large number of Ming transport ships have no ability to resist, and can only watch themselves being sunk! Once these transports were lost, the connection between the Ming Empire and the colonies would be completely destroyed.

Zhang Cheng hooked the corners of his mouth, raised his arm and stretched. Feeling the substantive-like gaze of Lieutenant General Yunmo, he smiled. He took out a brand new document from his briefcase.

"And?" Lieutenant General Yunmo took the document in surprise, but he couldn't take his eyes off it after just scanning the title. 'Convoy escort tactics'.

The conference room was quiet again, and Lieutenant General Yunmo frowned and looked at the document word by word. Every page is read very carefully. And Zhang Cheng was even more straightforward, lying directly on his side and sleeping on the sofa. He was so sleepy and tired that he really fell asleep this time.

The sun outside the porthole was gradually setting in the west, and the fiery red fiery clouds were churning in the sky. The sun, which had been in the sky for a whole day, gradually disappeared below the sea level. Bright stars began to rule the sky.

Zhang Cheng, who was sleeping soundly, was woken up by Lieutenant General Yunmo. opened his eyes and looked at Vice Admiral Yunmo, who had a complicated expression, and before Zhang Cheng could speak, Vice Admiral Yunmo had already asked in a deep voice, "If large-scale escort tactics are adopted, then a large number of escort warships will be needed." If you do it with fleet destroyers, the gains outweigh the losses. ”

After a pause, he raised his hand to stop Zhang Cheng's words, and then asked, "The method you said about using aircraft for anti-submarine is very good, but there are no such planes now." ”

Zhang Cheng shook his head and stood up, sorted out the military uniform on his body, and said with a smile, "It's almost time to get to the military port, right?" ”

"Huh?" Lieutenant General Yunmo didn't understand what Zhang Cheng meant, and looked at him suspiciously.

"Can you eat first?" Zhang Cheng smiled and said, "I'm hungry." ”

"You kid!" Lieutenant General Yunmo looked stunned for a moment, then reacted, raised his hand and patted Zhang Cheng on the shoulder, "I really don't know how you can be so smart!" Let's get a glimpse of the Navy's dinner! That's not something your army can match! ”

The worried Lieutenant General Yunmo understood that since Zhang Cheng had written this kind of escort tactic, he must have had sufficient technical support. Judging by his previous performance, whether it is an escort warship or an anti-submarine aircraft, there must already be a draft. Vice Admiral Yunmo, who was in a good mood, walked out of the conference room with Zhang Cheng's shoulders around him, ready to enjoy a sumptuous dinner for the navy

A little more than a month later, Zhang Cheng's arsenal in the London Concession completed an expansion. New production equipment was introduced, a new group of workers and several designers were recruited. Depth charges, which were simple to produce, were soon produced from the production line and began to be delivered to the Navy.

Zhang Cheng did not have time to wait for three years, and after consulting with Vice Admiral Yunmo, he handed over the required quantity and the entire production line to the navy as soon as possible. And with these things in exchange for almost ten million money from the Navy. Zhang Cheng soon submitted the test model of active sonar, and the navy specially sent a fleet destroyer to escort this set of sonar back to the mainland.

Those bigwigs who hold the power of the navy may cling to the big ships and cannons and will not let go, and they are not interested in the nascent affairs of naval aviation. However, they attach great importance to submarines that have already demonstrated their power in real combat. Because the submarine has already been tested in real combat.

When Zhang Cheng's depth charges and active exploration sonar were tested, the bigwigs quickly ordered all fleet destroyers and light cruisers to be equipped with depth charges and active sonar. It's a huge undertaking. Hundreds of warships need to be refitted, and an operation of this magnitude cannot be concealed from spies of various countries.

When the countries learned that the Ming Navy already had weapons that could effectively counter submarines, the enthusiasm of the navies of various countries for submarines suddenly decreased. Only the German Navy continued to maintain a strong investment in improving submarine technology. So as to master a new weapon that is enough to change the whole world.

Zhang Cheng's sonar technology patent earned him 20 million royalties in exchange for the Navy. This technology is a first-class secret, and the deep-pocketed navy directly bought this technology.

Zhang Cheng, who gradually became more abundant in his hands, was not soft at all when he spent money. The arsenal in the London Concession began to expand its production line again. At the same time, a large amount of money was spent to recruit a group of senior researchers.

Zhang Cheng can give information to draw drawings, but systematic integration is not a general difficulty for him. After all, the weapons of the industrial age were a whole system. Just like an airplane, the airframe structure, materials, power system, communication system, weapon system, and so on. If you want to integrate all these things perfectly, this is not something that Zhang Cheng can do.

Even if Zhang Cheng can give advanced weapons materials and drawings, he can't do it without the support of basic industry. Because if there is no supporting equipment, it will not be able to meet the requirements of the design. Zhang Cheng can only choose the mature technology that he already has in this era to provide various materials. He can't make the Great Leap. Progressive one-time elevation of decades of technology. Even if you have all the information and drawings of the J-20, at most it can be made by appearance, and everything else is a joke.

Compared to those old naval diehards in Vice Admiral Yunmo's mouth, this situation in the army is even more serious! They reject almost everything new, such as tanks.

On a rainy day in early April, Mr. Zhang received a tired guest in his office.